How can I get the application s path in a NET console application

Question

How do I find the application s path in a console application   In Windows Forms  I can use Application StartupPath to find the current path  but this doesn t seem to be available in a console application

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I use this if the exe is supposed to be called by double clicking it   var thisPath   System IO Directory GetCurrentDirectory

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You have two options for finding the directory of the application  which you choose will depend on your purpose      to get the location the assembly is executing from    not necessarily where the it normally resides on disk     in the case of the using shadow copies  for instance in NUnit tests      this will be in a temp directory  string path   System Reflection Assembly GetExecutingAssembly   Location     To get the location the assembly normally resides on disk or the install directory string path   System Reflection Assembly GetExecutingAssembly   CodeBase     once you have the path you get the directory with  var directory   System IO Path GetDirectoryName path

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I didn t see anyone convert the LocalPath provided by  Net Core reflection into a usable System IO path so here s my version  public static string GetApplicationRoot        var exePath   new Uri System Reflection     Assembly GetExecutingAssembly   CodeBase  LocalPath      return new FileInfo exePath  DirectoryName             This will return the full C   xxx  xxx formatted path to where your code is

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System Reflection Assembly GetExecutingAssembly   Location1  Combine that with System IO Path GetDirectoryName if all you want is the directory      1As per Mr Mindor s comment    System Reflection Assembly GetExecutingAssembly   Location returns where the executing assembly is currently located  which may or may not be where the assembly is located when not executing  In the case of shadow copying assemblies  you will get a path in a temp directory  System Reflection Assembly GetExecutingAssembly   CodeBase will return the  permanent  path of the assembly

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Following line will give you an application path   var applicationPath   Path GetDirectoryName Process GetCurrentProcess   MainModule FileName    Above solution is working properly in the following situations    simple app in another domain where Assembly GetEntryAssembly   would return null DLL is loaded from Embedded resources as a byte array and loaded to AppDomain as Assembly Load byteArrayOfEmbeddedDll  with Mono s mkbundle bundles  no other methods work

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You can create a folder name as Resources within the project using Solution Explorer then you can paste a file within the Resources   private void Form1 Load object sender  EventArgs e        string appName   Environment CurrentDirectory      int l   appName Length      int h   appName LastIndexOf  bin        string ll   appName Remove h                       string g   ll    Resources  sample txt       System Diagnostics Process Start g

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I mean  why not a p invoke method       using System      using System IO      using System Runtime InteropServices      using System Text      public class AppInfo                    DllImport  kernel32 dll   CharSet   CharSet Auto  ExactSpelling   false               private static extern int GetModuleFileName HandleRef hModule  StringBuilder buffer  int length               private static HandleRef NullHandleRef   new HandleRef null  IntPtr Zero               public static string StartupPath                               get                                       StringBuilder stringBuilder   new StringBuilder 260                       GetModuleFileName NullHandleRef  stringBuilder  stringBuilder Capacity                       return Path GetDirectoryName stringBuilder ToString                                             You would use it just like the Application StartupPath       Console WriteLine  The path to this executable is      AppInfo StartupPath          System Diagnostics Process GetCurrentProcess   ProcessName     exe

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I have used this code and get the solution   AppDomain CurrentDomain BaseDirectory

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Another solution is using relative paths pointing to the current path   Path GetFullPath

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For Console Applications  you can try this   System IO Directory GetCurrentDirectory      Output  on my local machine       c  users xxxxxxx documents visual studio 2012 Projects ImageHandler GetDir bin Debug   Or you can try  there s an additional backslash in the end    AppDomain CurrentDomain BaseDirectory   Output      c  users xxxxxxx documents visual studio 2012 Projects ImageHandler GetDir bin Debug

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None of these methods work in special cases like using a symbolic link to the exe  they will return the location of the link not the actual exe   So can use QueryFullProcessImageName to get around that   using System  using System IO  using System Runtime InteropServices  using System Text  using System Diagnostics   internal static class NativeMethods        DllImport  kernel32 dll   SetLastError   true       internal static extern bool QueryFullProcessImageName  In IntPtr hProcess   In int dwFlags   Out StringBuilder lpExeName  ref int lpdwSize         DllImport  kernel32 dll   SetLastError   true       internal static extern IntPtr OpenProcess          UInt32 dwDesiredAccess           MarshalAs UnmanagedType Bool           Boolean bInheritHandle          Int32 dwProcessId           public static class utils        private const UInt32 PROCESS QUERY INFORMATION   0x400      private const UInt32 PROCESS VM READ   0x010       public static string getfolder                 Int32 pid   Process GetCurrentProcess   Id          int capacity   2000          StringBuilder sb   new StringBuilder capacity           IntPtr proc           if   proc   NativeMethods OpenProcess PROCESS QUERY INFORMATION   PROCESS VM READ  false  pid      IntPtr Zero              return              NativeMethods QueryFullProcessImageName proc  0  sb  ref capacity            string fullPath   sb ToString 0  capacity            return Path GetDirectoryName fullPath

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Path GetDirectoryName System Diagnostics Process GetCurrentProcess   MainModule FileName  Is the only one that has worked for me in every case I have tried

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you can use this one instead   System Environment CurrentDirectory

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Here is a reliable solution that works with 32bit and 64bit applications  Add these references   using System Diagnostics  using System Management   Add this method to your project  public static string GetProcessPath int processId        string MethodResult    quot  quot       try               string Query    quot SELECT ExecutablePath FROM Win32 Process WHERE ProcessId    quot    processId           using  ManagementObjectSearcher mos   new ManagementObjectSearcher Query                         using  ManagementObjectCollection moc   mos Get                                  string ExecutablePath    from mo in moc Cast lt ManagementObject gt    select mo  quot ExecutablePath quot    First   ToString                     MethodResult   ExecutablePath                                       catch    Exception ex                  ex HandleException              return MethodResult     Now use it like so  int RootProcessId   Process GetCurrentProcess   Id   GetProcessPath RootProcessId    Notice that if you know the id of the process  then this method will return the corresponding ExecutePath  Extra  for those interested  Process GetProcesses        will give you an array of all the currently running processes  and    Process GetCurrentProcess       will give you the current process  along with their information e g  Id  etc  and also limited control e g  Kill  etc

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Try this simple line of code    string exePath   Path GetDirectoryName  Application ExecutablePath

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Probably a bit late but this is worth a mention   Environment GetCommandLineArgs   0     Or more correctly to get just the directory path   System IO Path GetDirectoryName Environment GetCommandLineArgs   0      Edit   Quite a few people have pointed out that GetCommandLineArgs is not guaranteed to return the program name  See The first word on the command line is the program name only by convention  The article does state that  Although extremely few Windows programs use this quirk  I am not aware of any myself    So it is possible to  spoof  GetCommandLineArgs  but we are talking about a console application  Console apps are usually quick and dirty  So this fits in with my KISS philosophy

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I have used   System AppDomain CurrentDomain BaseDirectory   when I want to find a path relative to an applications folder  This works for both ASP Net and winform applications  It also does not require any reference to System Web assemblies

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If you are looking for a  NET Core compatible way  use  System AppContext BaseDirectory   This was introduced in  NET Framework 4 6 and  NET Core 1 0  and  NET Standard 1 3   See  AppContext BaseDirectory Property   According to this page      This is the prefered replacement for AppDomain CurrentDomain BaseDirectory in  NET Core

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AppDomain CurrentDomain BaseDirectory   Will resolve the issue to refer the 3rd party reference files with installation packages

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in VB net  My Application Info DirectoryPath   works for me  Application Type  Class Library   Not sure about C     Returns the path w o Filename as string

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You can use the following code to get the current application directory   AppDomain CurrentDomain BaseDirectory

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You may be looking to do this   System IO Path GetDirectoryName      System Reflection Assembly GetExecutingAssembly   GetName   CodeBase

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The answer above was 90  of what I needed  but returned a Uri instead of a regular path for me   As explained in the MSDN forums post  How to convert URI path to normal filepath   I used the following      Get normal filepath of this assembly s permanent directory var path   new Uri      System IO Path GetDirectoryName          System Reflection Assembly GetExecutingAssembly   CodeBase        LocalPath

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There are many ways to get executable path  which one we should use it depends on our needs here is a link which discuss different methods   Different ways to get Application Executable Path

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For anyone interested in asp net web apps  Here are my results of 3 different methods  protected void Application Start object sender  EventArgs e      string p1   System IO Path GetDirectoryName System Reflection Assembly GetExecutingAssembly   Location     string p2   System Web Hosting HostingEnvironment ApplicationPhysicalPath    string p3   this Server MapPath        Console WriteLine  p1       p1     Console WriteLine  p2       p2     Console WriteLine  p3       p3       result  p1   C  Windows Microsoft NET Framework64 v4 0 30319 Temporary ASP NET Files root a897dd66 ec73ff95 assembly dl3 ff65202d 29daade3 5e84cc01 p2   C  inetpub SBSPortal staging  p3   C  inetpub SBSPortal staging   the app is physically running from  C  inetpub SBSPortal staging   so the first solution is definitely not appropriate for web apps

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You can simply add to your project references System Windows Forms and then use the System Windows Forms Application StartupPath  as usual    So  not need for more complicated methods or using the reflection

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Assembly GetEntryAssembly   Location or Assembly GetExecutingAssembly   Location  Use in combination with System IO Path GetDirectoryName   to get only the directory   The paths from GetEntryAssembly   and GetExecutingAssembly   can be different  even though for most cases the directory will be the same   With GetEntryAssembly   you have to be aware that this can return null if the entry module is unmanaged  ie C   or VB6 executable   In those cases it is possible to use GetModuleFileName from the Win32 API    DllImport  kernel32 dll   CharSet   CharSet Auto   public static extern int GetModuleFileName HandleRef hModule  StringBuilder buffer  int length

[c#] How can I get the application's path in a .NET console application?

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